2018: The CASB Year Ahead

As cloud apps and CASBs have matured, predicting 2018 industry events is much easier than in the past. You don’t need to be a psychic to know that there will be at least one CASB vendor acquired by a big security company. Of course, there will be nuances and details that are hard to pin down, but for the most part, the road ahead is getting clearer. Acquisitions, product changes, and our day to day work provide hints at what’s coming next.

Right-Sizing
Large CASB vendors and smaller solutions that don’t quite fit the CASB label are converging on the marketplace. As small and midsize businesses adopt cloud-based email and file sharing solutions at the highest rates, cloud security solutions are hoping to piggyback on the trend. Solution providers see the writing on the wall: API-based cloud security solutions that directly integrate into cloud apps provide the user experience that businesses want: Deploying a cloud security platform should be easy and the user experience should be seamless.

For large CASB providers, a cloud security solution made just for small and midsize businesses would mean building a new platform from the ground up. Existing CASB providers have the resources to move quickly and develop a full feature set, but for those who are looking to enter into this space, the barriers to entry are increasing. Many of the CASB vendors that are entering the cloud security space are starting from scratch, attempting to catch up to those vendors who already invested in API-based cloud security, or as I call it, CASB 2.0.

In an effort to bootstrap business, small “CASB-like” vendors are creating new cloud app security solutions feature by feature. Instead of offering the full suite of CASB features, like data visibility and control in the cloud, they offer a single function, like content filtering on email. If vendors like these don’t expand their feature sets quickly enough, a cloud app provider might upgrade their own platform, making these one-off features obsolete overnight.

New Partnerships and Acquisitions
Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs), like Proofpoint and Mimecast, provide a specialized gateway built for legacy on-premise and/or hosted email servers. But many organizations now use cloud email and cloud apps, like Google Gmail and Drive or Office 365 Mail and OneDrive. The legacy MTA approach doesn’t work in those scenarios because it does not provide visibility and control beyond the gateway.

In contrast, the API-based CASBs can inspect cloud email services for inbound threats and risks, scan internal email and mailboxes as well as the analysis and remediation of the corresponding file sharing apps. Therefore, using a combination of an API-based CASB with an MTA can provide complete coverage for your email and cloud apps. If MTAs tout email security but leave gaps between cloud email and services, then they have a responsibility to their customers to do something about it. Therefore we might start seeing CASBs forging new partnerships or become targets for acquisition as MTAs seek to close their cloud security gaps.

Enlightened Users
One of the most refreshing developments is a growing awareness that cloud apps don’t defend your organization against insider and regulatory threats. Every major hack or breach in an industry sends smoke signals to the rest who haven’t suffered the same fate yet. In the past tech pros ran from one fire to the next, but this year, we expect them to take cloud security risks seriously enough to purchase solutions that prevent the worst case scenarios.

ManagedMethods is gearing up for a big 2018! Our CASB 2.0 solution is among the few mature API-based solutions around. For organizations looking for cloud app security, our new customers tell us that we’ve hit the sweet spot with a quick setup, easy use, affordability, and all the features they need. It’s the CASB you need now.